


We Are Thicker Than Blood

by sleepyTeadrinker



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Child Abuse, Cuties, Fluff, M/M, only at the beginning though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-09-15
Packaged: 2018-02-10 09:04:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2019141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleepyTeadrinker/pseuds/sleepyTeadrinker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat escapes an abusive home and the Striders help him out. He inevitably falls for a certain coolkid.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Green and Tash for helping me get this publication-ready. WARNING for descriptions of child abuse, blood mentions, violence. It is brief and I felt it necessary to the plot. Skip over if icky.

The belt came down on his back, again and again, splitting open old wounds and ripping fresh ones. Karkat bit his lip until it bled, choking back the tears that would result in prolonged agony.  
  
His father barked an insult at him with each stroke, favouring the word “faggot” this evening. Only when Karkat’s whole back was streaked with blood and puffy with welts did his mother speak up to end it.  
  
“Please.” Her voice was weak and shaky, barely audible, but the man of the house stopped almost instantly. Almost. One last hard crack with the belt buckle and he was finished. As he threaded the belt back around his waist he turned back to the armchair he had been occupying. Karkat was curled in a tight ball on the floor, crumpled from where he had been kneeling.  
  
Head between his knees, he could still hear when his father, under his breath, murmured that “He could’ve done with more.” More painful still, he heard no objection from his mother. Karkat stayed there on the floor, taking up as little space as humanly possible, until his father plodded to the bathroom. Then he began the painful process of unsticking his red-brown smeared limbs from the floorboards.  
  
Dragging himself up the stairs and into bed, he winced as his back hit the sheets. Tonight was not the night to run a bath - that was just asking for it. He wasn’t going to get much sleep. The same thought was running through his mind over and over again for over an hour. He had to get out of there. He had to.  
  
In the middle of the night, when the whole house was dark, silent, but for the hum of the fridge and the light in the bathroom, the boy who was nearly a man packed a bag. At first it was just the basics, like he was going to summer camp, but then Karkat found himself wanting to pack everything. The blanket wouldn’t fit in his school backpack, so he left it in favour of several cans of beans that he was careful not to clatter together. He was closing the door behind him before he stopped to think about where he would go.  
  
In theory, it didn’t matter where. Surely anywhere would be better than staying in this house. Lighting his way by the pathetic flashlight on his keychain, he made it to a bus shelter with half a roof, and curled up on the cold bench for the night. So relieved was he to be somewhere that his father was not, he didn’t even think to worry about people finding him in the morning until an old woman was shaking him gently awake.  
  
“You alright, lovey?” She looked nice enough, if the laugh lines etched into her face were anything to go by, but Karkat couldn’t take any chances.  
  
He took mere moments to come to his senses. “Yes, fine. Thanks.” And then he ran. His heart pounded in time with his footsteps and he could hear it in hears ears and feel it pulsing through his wounds. He had never been one for running, but he put everything he had into it, hitting the ground with one foot after another in a surprisingly comforting rhythm - until he couldn’t remember what he was running from and began to wonder where he was running to. He couldn’t think of anywhere he wanted to be. He just wished he could stop existing. It wasn’t like the world needed a fucked up little whining faggot to look after anyway.  
  
It was then that he realised he was crossing a bridge and for a moment he looked over the edge into the dark water. It was a long way down. The water rushed past under him and the sound was almost deafening. He was standing up on the bottom rail now and it would only take to overbalance slightly and he wouldn’t have to deal with any of this anymore.  
  
Karkat jumped back and hurried to get as far from the water as possible. It scared him how much he wanted to go head first over the rails. His head hurt and his feet hurt and his back hurt and he was hungry and cold despite the morning sun and part of him wanted to go running back home. He found a park bench overlooking the water and sat down, unloading the backpack from his sticky shirt with a gasp and a sigh.  
  
For a moment he caught a glimpse of his reflection in the water and almost laughed out loud. No wonder people were giving him looks. His hair was sticking up at every angle and one of his eyes had swelled up from a drunken punch a few days earlier, and it seemed his back had started bleeding a little. There was a stain on his shirt almost in the shape of a heart. That was funny.  
  
Karkat yawned widely and stretched his arms. He hadn’t got much sleep, what with the sneaking out late and the uncomfortable bus stop and the overly friendly old lady. Part of him was telling him that sleeping in the daytime was stupid and it was true he hadn’t had a nap in the day since kindergarten but it wasn’t as if there was anything he had to do, and it would pass the time. He wouldn’t have to put up with all the sickeningly concerned looks he was getting from passers-by.  
  
He pulled all his belongings around him on the bench and tucked his knees up in front of him. His thoughts briefly drifted to the future. He couldn’t sleep on park benches forever. What would he do about school? He had his finals at the end of the year. He drifted off thinking about sitting an exam at a park bench, and so it was with a very grumpy snarl that he greeted the hipster douche unfortunate enough to wake him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dave brings Karkat home for dinner.

“Hey kid, you alright?”

The boy curled up on the bench rubbed his eyes and scowled. “Yeah, ‘course. Peachy. No thanks to you, asshat!” His stomach growled audibly and he rummaged in the beat up school backpack next to him and pulled out a can and a Swiss Army knife. Dave could only watch on in astonishment as he stabbed holes angrily in the top. “I’m imagining it’s my dad,” he offered by way of explanation, and bared his teeth in a grimace pretending to be a smile.

Dave stood and watched as the boy slurped juice through the stab holes between attempts to enlarge them. He was sort of cute, in a scruffy way. He smelled a bit odd and his clothes were stained and old but his bed hair was endearing, frankly. He reminded Dave of his cousin’s dog. More bark than bite, he was willing to bet. On second thought, if he tried to pat this kid he could very well lose a hand. “You got a name, kid?”

“Fuck you.” And there was that bark. Maybe he _was_ a dog.

“Why don’t you get yourself a shower first, then we’ll see.” He smirked as Dogboy growled in annoyance and turned to go through the bag again. It was then that Dave noticed the crest printed on the backpack, the pretentious Latin motto underneath. _Fortitude et sapientia._ Courage and wisdom. He couldn’t see it clearly from his angle but he’d bet his sharpest sword that he’d read it correctly. It was written on Dave’s bag too.

Swinging the bag off his shoulder and dumping it on the floor, Dave plonked himself down on the small part of the bench not taken up by the boy and his meagre belongings. He studied the boy’s face more closely. “Do I know you?”

“I sure fucking hope not, douchenuts!”

“Woah, touchy.” Suddenly, Dave realised. “Karkat?” The boy’s head snapped round and the fury in his eyes was so out of sync with the fluffy hairdo that Dave had to concentrate on not laughing. “You’re the angry kid.”

Karkat was too curious about his reputation to be angry. “What?”

“The angry kid. Didn’t you like kick a hole in the wall in the history room last year?”

The boy lowered his head. “It was only plasterboard,” he mumbled by way of excuse. “And it serves the teacher right for calling me a liar!”

“Yeah whatever, kiddo.” He looked around. The sun was low in the sky and visible only as glints through the trees on the other side of the park. He looked back to Karkat and the odd contents of his school bag and in a matter of seconds it dawned on him. “You’re running away?”

“Do I look like I’m running? Idiot.”

Dave frowned. The kid had been eating canned beans for fuck’s sake. “Karkat. Eat dinner at my house tonight. Please.”

Karkat was about to say something and then snapped his mouth shut so fast Dave could hear his teeth click. He tried again. “Uh. Your parents, they won’t...”

“Won’t want?” Dave smirked and waggled his eyebrows, prompting another growl from Karkat. Now they were getting somewhere.

“They won’t call anyone? Like the school or my parents or whatever?” Karkat examined a damp spot on the bench next to him and didn’t meet Dave’s eyes. Well, shades.

“Well I don’t have any, so no. And my brother wouldn’t.”

Karkat looked up slightly. He almost looked shy, and it surprised Dave for a minute. Karkat smiled. “Thanks,” he said quietly.

Dave nodded, and then got to his feet quickly. “Well it’s getting dark. You coming or what?” He reached a hand down to help Karkat up, but the boy ignored it and pulled himself to standing.

They walked. Dave talked. Karkat nodded occasionally, or scoffed at something Dave said, but mostly Dave talked, and they walked. “I mean he totally had no idea the kind of shit he’d get into for something like that. I’m talking grade-A horse shit here, bro. Maybe a whole swimming pool full. Teacher was furious. She threatened to hang him, I’m not even kidding. I mean what kind of an idiot thinks that a pie to the face is a good way to greet a teacher? Egbert is who. And then she made him sit in the naughty corner like he was a fucking four year old, and he just giggled quietly to himself the whole time. We thought he had lost it!”

Karkat snorted. “Are all your friends that crazy?”

“Nah bro, not at all. There’s Jade, she’s really sweet. Likes to grow flowers and shit. All up in that fertiliser like she breathes it. You know, you might be right. They’re all crazy. You’ll fit right in.” He laughed.

“What?”

“Sorry man, I just meant if you wanted to, uh, hang with us sometime. Like at school or whatever.”

“I, uh,” Karkat stammered.

“And we’re here,” Dave announced. He was glad to move away from the topic. It was clearly making Karkat uncomfortable.

Karkat’s jaw dropped, and Dave had to look at it again to work out why. He had never really appreciated how huge his house was. It was one of the larger ones on its street, sure, but the others were pretty damn big too. They all had nicely cared-for front gardens, with neatly trimmed hedges and paved driveways. Dave was pretty sure every single household on his street had a whole fleet of staff. Bro cut the hedges back himself with a katana, so the topiary looked more like ragged stumps.

His house stood out from the others because it wasn’t delicately painted white, it didn’t have the nicely trimmed hedges, and to be perfectly honest, it looked like a dump. Although, judging by the face Karkat was making, not everyone thought so.

Dave felt a little embarrassed. “Yeah, uh, come in.” He unlocked the door and all but shoved Karkat forward into the hallway. “I guess I should give you the grand tour. La maison a la Strider. This here is the TV room. Our DVDs are so cool that Bro _doesn’t buy me any and I have to pay for them myself!”_ This last bit was screamed up the stairs, to where Bro may or may not have been. “We have a shitload of MLP, Bro watches it I think. Or maybe he just bought them all for the irony, who even knows, right? Moving on, that’s the kitchen, through there. I’d show you but, last I checked, there were explosives in the microwave, and I don’t think that’s safe, to be perfectly honest. If you want food, I got snacks in my room. Onwards!”

Karkat was looking around in awe at all the rooms and the fluffy carpet, albeit torn up and stained. As the tour went on, Dave accidentally left him behind twice because he kept stopping to look at things. At last, they reached Dave’s room.

The bed was decent, but pushed to one corner to make room for the turntables. The windows were floor to ceiling, but Dave had taped bath towels over them so the light didn’t bother him. On the wall at the foot of the bed was a large television. Dave caught Karkat staring. “You wanna watch? Get some more cushions.” He pointed to the opposite corner of the room, where a huge pile of pillows and blankets was balanced precariously. Karkat gathered up an armful and clambered onto the bed next to Dave, who flicked channels quickly.

“Uh,” Karkat started, seeing some vaguely familiar cartoon characters. Dave clicked back to the channel and they watched Bugs Bunny until the show ended.

“You want food?” Dave asked, and Karkat nodded in reply. He had been wide eyed and quiet ever since they reached the house, and Dave figured if he didn’t want to talk, that was cool too. He got up and rummaged through his closet, tossing Karkat a bottle of apple juice and a bag of Cheetos. “Eat up, I gotta go talk to Bro real quick.”

Dave knocked quietly on the door of Bro’s study, very different in mood than he had been with Karkat. He pushed the door open slowly and poked his head in. Bro was doing something complicated with a wrench and what looked like a metal arm. He looked up when Dave came in.

“’Sup?”

Dave thought for a moment. “Uh, so I have a friend over...”

“And?”

“I just thought you should know?”

Bro put the wrench down and turned backwards on his chair to face Dave. He folded his arms across the chair back and looked very serious. “You’ve had friends over before. You needed to tell me about this one because?”

Dave fidgeted and tugged at the bottom of his shirt. “Can he stay over?”

“’Course, did you have to ask?”

“Uh,” Dave would’ve loved to be able to say that he couldn’t even really remember what was important enough to disturb his brother. Except that he could. He was just trying to figure out whether it would be a betrayal of Karkat’s trust to say anything, and why the hell he didn’t figure it out before he knocked, when Bro spoke again.

“He go to your school?”

“Yeah,” Dave chose his words carefully. “He needs somewhere to stay.”

Bro nodded once, slowly. He turned back around to face his work and picked up the wrench again. The conversation was over. “There’s pizza downstairs.”

Dave shut the door quietly behind himself.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to everyone who helped make this happen! To stay posted on the story's progress, follow me on Tumblr at http://sleepyteadrinker.com


End file.
